Man accused of placing Trump stickers on car of local Democrat, trying to follow her.

Alcohol kills more Americans.

What legitimate use does it have? Recreation is it. And it's lethal for so many. And you haven't directly answered, but I guess I will assume that you would not ban, nor more strictly regulate alcohol. The only reason you have given is that is does have a legitimate use (recreation), which I acknowledge, thus making my point, by illustrating one of the many reasons that it should not be banned.

And allow me to get this out of the way in answer to your question: I don't buy guns, because I already have what I need. I do buy ammo on occasion. I'm no more complicit in American firearm deaths, than I am in alcohol deaths because I bought a case of beer. If I die from alcohol, then I am complicit in my alcohol related death. If I get drunk and kill people behind the wheel, then I am complicit in their deaths, but still not complicit in all 88,000 Americans who die from it every year. That's how that works. Your argument is as absurd as those PSAs during the Bush admin, telling us that if we bought weed, we were supporting terrorism. So if people buy weed on the black market, are they supporting terrorism? Is everyone who smokes weed in a prohibition state a terrible person? Is everone who buys gasoline responsible for terrorism?

I suppose you are calling me obtuse for assuming the police would also be prohibited from carrying these weapons of domestic terror, as you call them. But your replies are so evasive that I am left to either make assumptions about what you are saying, thus risking putting words in your mouth, or otherwise appearing "obtuse" as you call it.

So you would allow the police to carry semi-automatics, yes? You'd allow the police, who in America do not have a stellar track record of treating civilians well, to carry "weapons of domestic terror"? What this reveals is the following:

(1) You are implicitly acknowledging that they are not weapons of domestic terror.

(2) You are implicitly acknowledging that semi-automatic firearms do have a legitimate use in peacetime.

(3) You still want them banned from civilian hands, because you think that civilians using weapons for self-defense is not a legitimate act. You think that a civilian who keeps a firearm for self-defense is committing a wrong, improper, possibly evil act.

And it is especially on that last point that I completely disagree with you. And so do many other Americans, including Democrats and Independents. Just as a majority of us don't want an alcohol ban, we don't want a ban of semi-automatics. Just as a proposed ban of alcohol would never succeed and would be a political disaster for any political party that proposed it, so would a proposed blanket ban of semi-automatics.

Analogy:

Isn't that like saying let's ban alcohol because of drunk driving deaths? There are more gun homicides than drunk driving deaths, but the numbers are the same order of magnitude. And how many homicides are alcohol fueled, I wonder? Quite a few, I'd wager. Stats:

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/homicide.htm

https://www.nhtsa.gov/risky-driving/drunk-driving

And since you aren't proposing to ban all guns, I'll be fair and say let's not ban all alcohol, let's allow weak 3.2% beer to still be sold. No more IPAs, no wine, and certainly no liquor. Even Bud, Miller, etc. would have to tone it down. You'd probably have to drink 8 or more of those 3.2% beers to get drunk enough to kill someone.

Some might argue that they drink beer, that they like beer (like Brett Kavanaugh), or some other strong drink, and that they don't want to be forced to drink some weak-ass beer just because a few maniac assholes make bad choices after drinking. And further, that we should hold responsible the people who make those bad choices, rather than all adults.

Others might argue that regardless of the merits of the idea, many Americans are responsible alcohol users who do not want to lose their ability to drink their alcoholic beverage of choice. Because of this, Democrats would lose too many voters if they ran on the idea of banning most alcohol. If that happened, then not only would we not get our alcohol ban, but we would not get any of our priorities enacted, priorities that we Democrats all generally agree upon. And we'd have the continuing nightmare of all the bad things that happen when Trump, or someone like him, is in office.

But if you made either of those arguments, I'd reply that you sound like an alcohol humper, an alcohol fetishist, or maybe just a plain old alcoholic. You want to let 10,000 Americans die per year in drunk driving crashes alone, and let countless others die from alcohol fueled homicides, and alcohol related diseases, just so you can drink your tasty intoxicating beverages instead of the weak-ass swill that I think you should be allowed to drink. And furthermore, every time you buy a drink, you are contributing to an alcohol industry that is responsible for 10,000 dead Americans per year.

And don't reply with statistics about the last time America tried Prohibition, because it might weaken my argument, and besides, I'm not proposing to ban all alcohol.

So, are you on board with my argument to ban most alcohol? If not, why not?

Sounds like Blue Cross.

I've had them at various times, and they always pulled that crap. It superficially looks like sloppy incompetence, but it always goes in their favor. In the computer age, how could you possibly process a claim as if I am in lower tier coverage, when I am in the higher tier coverage? Luckily, where I work now, I had a choice. So I dropped them and went with more expensive insurance offered by a union. More expensive on paper, but you know what? They actually pay claims, exactly as they are supposed to, every time. So there is no more wasted time on the phone, writing angry letters and filling out forms. I get that time back, and it's worth every penny.

If more people just had choices, like I do, it would be an improvement. Before we try single payer, I'd like to see a system where we buy our health insurance the way we buy car insurance, with some ground rules of course. They have to cover preexisting conditions, there is a minimum level of coverage that all plans must provide, and everyone has to carry it. Like the ACA exchanges, but for everyone. It's ridiculous that so many Americans are locked into a single insurance company because of where they work. For many, the status quo vs single payer argument is monopoly vs monopoly. Many workers are stuck in a local monopoly with their employer based coverage, and single payer will replace it with a national monopoly. So people think, "my current coverage is the devil I know. And I could always go work somewhere else, or convince my HR department to offer something else. But if we get single-payer and it sucks, what recourse do I have?"

'Help': Photos show hundreds of migrants, children crammed in overflowing border facilities

I have read numerous descriptions, but seen few pictures, of the terrible conditions in the camps. This article contains a few pictures, and they are worse than I had imagined based on the descriptions. Apparently these photos were taken by Homeland Security inspectors, and it isn't clear if they were released or leaked.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/help-photos-show-hundreds-migrants-squashed-cells-appealing-assistance-n1025831